


Lonely - Jongyu

by MoMyMiddleName



Category: K-pop, SHINee
Genre: Alone, Attraction, Beaches, Gay, Light Angst, Loneliness, Lost - Freeform, Lost Boys, Love, M/M, Neglect, Ocean, One Shot, Silence, angsty, lonely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 04:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11775225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoMyMiddleName/pseuds/MoMyMiddleName
Summary: A story of silence and the wonderful disturbance of it.





	Lonely - Jongyu

**Author's Note:**

> I already posted this in my SHINee ship collection but I felt that it deserves to be read alone so here it is.  
> This is probably my proudest work.  
> Angsty loneliness - based on Jinki's station mv for Lullaby and Jonghyun's mv for Lonely.  
> Word count: 2,5K

He realises that the silence has become his only friend. The only one left he can trust to stay with him from the moment he wakes up in a bed that used to be occupied by slow, heavy breathing next to him, to the moment he goes back to sleep, sometimes on the sofa when the silence seems to laugh at him upstairs. Most of their quality time is spent looking out at the blue abyss from his big window. He often finds himself toying with the thought of letting it swallow him. The thought, to him, is beautiful. It is hypnotising to watch the waves hit the sand and retract back into the ocean. Sometimes he sits there reading. This is usually the reason he finds longing waltz arrogantly through the front door, accompanying the silence.

He looks up from his book about a lost boy and plays with the strings on his morning robe, that has recently become his favourite thing to wear. He looks out of the window and spots a figure that is facing the ocean. He becomes aware of the while it has been since he has last seen someone in the sand, or anywhere near his house for that matter. He is aware that people are a rare sight here at this time of year. There is nothing he wants more at this moment than to go out there and speak to him but his worst enemies, fear and doubt, have settled in front of the door, blocking the way. Instead, he watches as the man stops and stares out at the ocean like he too has spent so many hours doing. The man walks back the way he came and disappears out of view. He steps away from the window, finding his person faintly reflected in the glass.

"Lee Jinki," he sighs and turns away.

Every day he sits on his windowsill, watching the man look out at the ocean and walk back. He counts the days by the black marks on the man's arm. By the time of the 27th mark, the man, in his white and blue button down and light blue jeans, enters the blue abyss, that seems to have gone untouched for a while. It must have been hungry because the man keeps walking, still fully clothed, further into the cold ocean. He feeds it.

The book about the lost boy is left behind on the windowsill and the door is left open as Jinki pushes aside the two guards, who have shrunk to nothing. He runs into the ocean after the man whose last strand of hair has entered the mouth of the blue abyss and will soon be chewed and swallowed. Jinki is running as fast as his body can manage. He reaches out for the man underwater, spotting his dark hair just below the surface. Jinki carries him up on the beach.

"Can you hear me?" Jinki grabs his wrist in panic, feeling a still beating pulse. He does everything he remembers of basic first aid. There is no breathing so Jinki wastes no time before pressing his hands down on the young man's chest. He has only counted to seven when his body jerks and water escapes his lungs through the mouth. Once again Jinki is quick and puts his arms under the man, carrying him inside his house and laying him down on his sofa. He takes a few steps back from him. He becomes aware of the weeks (months) it has been since he has last had someone inside his house.

Jinki feels how the bravery seeps out of every crack of the house, kindly shown out by the doormen who have grown giant again as he finds himself afraid of losing a person he has no relation to. This feeling only grows stronger as the man opens his eyes and looks up at the frantic Jinki.

"Are you cold?" Jinki certainly is and he is sure that the blue lips on the boy are a sign of the same.

"Yes." His voice is shaky but it has been a long time since Jinki last has had someone speak to him. It nearly makes him jump. "V-very cold." He stumbles over his own words and shivers, goose bumps visible on his bare arms. Jinki helps him upstairs to his bathroom where he sits him down on the closed toilet lid and wraps a towel around him.

"I'll get you some dry clothes. Stay right here." Jinki rushes away from the hopeless puppy eyes that stare up at him and into his closet, looking for his comfiest robe. He finds his softest one, the brown one, and grabs a pair of underwear and a t-shirt. He brings it back to the man, sitting just as before on the toilet, staring at the door. "I'm back. Take these. You can change in here. Just give your wet clothes to me when you've finished. I'll put them somewhere to dry." Jinki receives a disoriented nod and leaves to change out of his own wet morning robe.

He leaves the dry robe untied, playing with the strings as he waits in the hall across from the door to the bathroom. Jinki looks up as the door opens and their eyes meet once again.

"Uhm, thank you," the man speaks up. His quiet voice tells Jinki that he is just as nervous as himself, if not more. There is an insecurity to his voice that Jinki recognises from his own mind.

"It's no problem. Let me take your clothes. I'm Lee Jinki." He leads the boy back down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he lets his name slip from his lips with such a fragility that it takes Jinki a few seconds to process the words 'Kim Jonghyun'.

He puts the clothes to dry by the big window.

"Do you want anything to drink, Jonghyun?" He sits him down on a chair by the wooden table. His nervous eyes look up at Jinki and he nods his head. Only now does Jinki spot the dark lines underneath each eye. He looks drained. A state that isn't unfamiliar to Jinki. He smiles shortly at Jonghyun before boiling water for tea.

"I did it on purpose," Jonghyun speaks up. His voice is as fragile as before but shows a certain kind of courage.

"I guessed, cause I... I saw you here every day. I don't have a lot to do other than sitting on my windowsill," Jinki laughs scornfully at himself. Jonghyun's face gives away that he hears the pain, the cry for help behind the cold laugh.

"You thought about it too then?" Jinki pours the boiling water over the tea in the pot and brings it to the table. He answers Jonghyun with a nod and next to the pot he places two teacups that he has inherited from his grandparents. Jinki's palms are clammy as he holds his teacup tightly.

"I'm alone most of the time, so I find my mind wandering some pretty dark paths." Jonghyun's nod gives Jinki a feeling of mutual understanding. A warm feeling builds itself up inside of him, competing with the silence that is attacked by the many words that leave Jinki's mouth.

"Why is it that you're able to hate life so much that you want to stop it, end it?"

"If you ask me life is a neutral thing. It's not life itself that makes you sad or happy, but all the little things and the big things that affect it. Some are born into a life of happiness and love and some are born lonely. Life is not a constant because it is neutral. It changes as the world around you does, as you do. I think the only way out of our misery is to change, but that's hard to do when you have little to no motivation." Jonghyun stares up at Jinki as he shares his thoughts. Jinki's words seem obvious to himself and he is surprised to see the look of fascination in Jonghyun's eyes.

"I guess I knew that, but I never quite thought of it like that." He looks down at the teacup, tracing the golden edge with his thumb. Other than his moving thumb Jonghyun sits still as a statue. "I..." Jonghyun trails off, shutting his mouth again.

"You what?" Jinki is desperate for conversation, for a human to be speaking directly to him. The silence hates that but the silence has always been a bad friend anyway. There is no need to let it occupy the kitchen.

"I really missed talking." Jonghyun's eyes are glossy, almost teary. "To someone other than myself," he adds with a chuckle of relief and pity.

"It would be really nice if you stayed for a bit." Jinki lets slip what he's been thinking about ever since their eyes first met. Jonghyun's words have made him brave.

Jonghyun's smile is beautifully melancholic.

There's no answer but Jinki knows what Jonghyun is thinking because they both know the silence all too well and they both wish they didn't. So they sit and let the silence creep back over them, but the silence has turned kind in the meantime and Jinki wonders if it is because of Jonghyun's smile.

It's mean to presume that Jonghyun needs to stay. It's mean to presume that he isn't just too exhausted to get up. Jonghyun turns his head because he doesn't want to smile at mean people.

"Do you live close by?" Jonghyun downs the last bit of tea left in the old cup. He stares down at the grains of tea at the bottom. He looks for shapes because his mother had believed in tea reading and Jonghyun has begun to believe that anything can speak in desperate times. He answers with a simple yes. "So you live here all year too?" Jinki sighs. He's lost a battle because his opponent is doing worse than himself. Jinki doesn't think this is fair.

"Yes, I do. It's quiet in the winter but I'm used to that by now."

"Why do you think people leave us? Are we that bad?" Jinki fights the deceiving silence that has returned, cold, too cold, colder than he's ever felt it before. Maybe it is a breeze but the windows are closed. It is the silence.

"We're that sad. No one wants a self-sulking, sad friend." He gives the silence room to reply. It laughs. "When it pains you to be around people because they look so happy, laughing with friends or holding hands with their partners. That's sad enough to make you unwanted. If you can't even be around people how do you expect them to be around you?"

"You find someone like yourself." Jinki's voice is as shaky as Jonghyun's has been before it grew cold and hard like the silence. Jonghyun looks up at the tears that are forming in Jinki's eyes. They're hurt by the expectations that got too high, by the sliver of hope that opened only to close itself again.

It's mean to presume that Jonghyun wants to stay. It's mean to presume that he isn't just too exhausted to get up. Jonghyun turns his head because he doesn't want to pity mean people.

Jinki spills tea on the wooden table between them. Jinki doesn't look at it because it's mean to turn the other cheek when someone is screaming for help. Jinki doesn't look at it because it's mean not to pity mean people, who aren't really mean.

It's mean not to notice.

Jonghyun starts to see ugly faces in the spilt tea. He looks away because he has begun to believe that anything can speak in desperate times. He looks up at Jinki because he has begun to believe that anyone can tell that these are desperate times.

"I'm just too exhausted to get up." Jinki sees through the lie right into Jonghyun's foggy mind. Jonghyun isn't sure if he is trying to convince Jinki or himself. It seems irrelevant to even have opened his mouth.

"I've been too exhausted for a long time now." Jinki tries; but Jonghyun is complicated; but Jinki reads him like an open book and Jonghyun is irritated.

Jinki desires to see Jonghyun's too skinny cheeks rise into a smile, but Jonghyun's smile isn't for anyone. Jonghyun's smile is not even for himself. Jonghyun's smile got lost somewhere in the silence and now he can't find it. Jinki found it once or twice, but that was not his own, that was a borrowed smile... Right?

_...Right._

The angel on Jonghyun's shoulder is laughing. It's taunting him... It's not an angel, though. Jonghyun was born with a devil on each shoulder, one disguised as the good, the other as the silence. Jinki was born without any angels or devils. Jinki was born, raised, picked up and left alone. His parents call sometimes. His parents call and they ask him if he has enough money.

 _Yes, I'm fine._   ~~(a lie.)~~ _Great, we'll see you soon._ (a lie.)

Isn't it mean not to notice?

Jonghyun presses play on the paused scene. He releases the teacup from his cursed grip and lets it brush against Jinki's cheek where the tears sting his sugary skin. They sting Jonghyun harder because Jonghyun doesn't believe in them until they force him to feel the pain that they brought, the pain that he brought. Jonghyun doesn't let his hand fall. Jonghyun deserves the pain. The angel that is a devil tells him to enjoy the pain. The devil that is the silence tells him to take his hand away. The silence is a bad friend; it has always been.

"There's so much pain here."

"It was worse before you came."

Jonghyun stays.

Jonghyun stays because the pain eased when Jinki's eyes expressed warmth towards him. Jonghyun stays because it's nice to be exhausted when there's someone to take care of you. Jonghyun stays because it's mean not to notice. Jonghyun stays because Jinki needs to be noticed. Jonghyun stays because they both need to be noticed.

The book about the lost boy is put back on the shelf.

It does not take long for them to realise that Jonghyun is in no need of the lonely house down the road. His boxes fill the living room and his presence fills the silence.

Jinki shuts the front door, the last box being set down on the floor. With their backs to the front door, they find each other's gaze through the mirror opposite them. Jinki's face brightens in a way he forgot it could. Jonghyun smiles. Jonghyun has begun to believe that Jinki found his smile for him somewhere in the silence.

"Lee Jinki," Jonghyun mutters with his eyes glued to the clear reflection of him in the mirror.

And then Jonghyun puts his lips on Jinki's because his smile looks sweet and Jonghyun is curious about the taste. Jonghyun tastes mornings in bed on Jinki's lips. Jonghyun tastes tea and cake in the kitchen, sunlight from the window, sand and saltwater, lost boys lost together.

The silence smiles at its two best friends. The silence departs silently. There's a note on the fridge for the new silence. 'treat them well', it says.


End file.
